Odessa
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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- A Ukrainian port city on the Black Sea.
- A city in United States state of Texas.
- Odesa province (oblast) of Ukraine.
Beginnings of revolution
In 1905, Odessa was the site of a workers' uprising supported by the crew of the Russian battleship Potemkin and the Menshevik's Iskra. Sergei Eisenstein's famous motion picture The Battleship Potemkin commemorated the uprising and included a scene where hundreds of Odessan citizens were murdered on the great stone staircase (now popularly known as the "Potemkin Steps"), in one of the most famous scenes in motion picture history. At the top of the steps, which lead down to the port, stands a statue of the Duc de Richelieu.
The actual massacre took place in streets nearby, not on the steps themselves, but the film caused many to visit Odessa to see the site of the "slaughter". The "Odessa Steps" continue to be a tourist attraction in Odessa. The film was made at Odessa's Cinema Factory, one of the oldest cinema studios in the former Soviet Union.
Following the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 during Ukrainian-Soviet War, Odessa saw two Bolshevik armed insurgencies, the second of which succeeded in establishing their control over the city; for the following months the city became a center of the Odessa Soviet Republic. After signing of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty all Bolshevik forces were driven out by 13 March 1918 by the combined armed forces of the Austro-Hungarian Army, providing support to the Ukrainian People's Republic.
With the end of the World War I and withdrawal of armies of Central Powers, the Soviet forces fought for control over the country with the army of the Ukrainian People's Republic. A few months later the city was occupied by the French Army and the Greek Army that supported the Russian White Army in its struggle with the Bolsheviks. The Ukrainian general Nikifor Grigoriev who sided with Bolsheviks managed to drive the unwelcome Triple Entente forces out of the city, but Odessa was soon retaken by the Russian White Army. By 1920 the Soviet Red Army managed to overpower both the Ukrainian and Russian White Army and secure the city.
The people of Odessa suffered badly from a famine that resulted from the Russian Civil War in 1921–1922 due to the Soviet policies of prodrazverstka.
